- end_line
- 10853
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:15.153Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 10792
- text
- trunks of palm-trees. They called it a school-house; but as such we
never saw it occupied. It was often used as a court-room, however; and
here we attended several trials; among others, that of a decayed naval
officer, and a young girl of fourteen; the latter charged with having
been very naughty on a particular occasion set forth in the pleadings;
and the former with having aided and abetted her in her naughtiness,
and with other misdemeanours.
The foreigner was a tall, military-looking fellow, with a dark cheek
and black whiskers. According to his own account, he had lost a
colonial armed brig on the coast of New Zealand; and since then, had
been leading the life of a man about town among the islands of the
Pacific.
The doctor wanted to know why he did not go home and report the loss of
his brig; but Captain Crash, as they called him, had some
incomprehensible reasons for not doing so, about which he could talk by
the hour, and no one be any the wiser. Probably he was a discreet man,
and thought it best to waive an interview with the lords of the
admiralty.
For some time past, this extremely suspicious character had been
carrying on the illicit trade in French wines and brandies, smuggled
over from the men-of-war lately touching at Tahiti. In a grove near the
anchorage he had a rustic shanty and arbour, where, in quiet times,
when no ships were in Taloo, a stray native once in a while got boozy,
and staggered home, catching at the cocoa-nut trees as he went. The
captain himself lounged under a tree during the warm afternoons, pipe
in mouth; thinking, perhaps, over old times, and occasionally feeling
his shoulders for his lost epaulets.
But, sail ho! a ship is descried coming into the bay. Soon she drops
her anchor in its waters; and the next day Captain Crash entertains the
sailors in his grove. And rare times they have of it:—drinking and
quarrelling together as sociably as you please.
Upon one of these occasions, the crew of the Leviathan made so
prodigious a tumult that the natives, indignant at the insult offered
their laws, plucked up a heart, and made a dash at the rioters, one
hundred strong. The sailors fought like tigers; but were at last
overcome, and carried before a native tribunal; which, after a mighty
clamour, dismissed everybody but Captain Crash, who was asserted to be
the author of the disorders.
Upon this charge, then, he had been placed in confinement against the
coming on of the assizes; the judge being expected to lounge along in
the course of the afternoon. While waiting his Honour’s arrival,
numerous additional offences were preferred against the culprit (mostly
by the old women); among others was the bit of a slip in which he stood
implicated along with the young lady. Thus, in Polynesia as
elsewhere;—charge a man with one misdemeanour, and all his peccadilloes
are raked up and assorted before him.
Going to the school-house for the purpose of witnessing the trial, the
din of it assailed our ears a long way off; and upon entering the
building, we were almost stunned. About five hundred natives were
present; each apparently having something to say and determined to say
it. His Honour—a handsome, benevolent-looking old man—sat cross-legged
on a little platform, seemingly resigned, with all Christian
submission, to the uproar. He was an hereditary chief in this quarter
of the island, and judge for life in the district of Partoowye.
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